Game Day Box Set: A College Football Romance Read online

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trying to forget that I kissed you,” he says, settling his elbows on the table and leaning in. “I’ve been thinking about it for hours. Honestly, I’ve been wanting to do it for weeks, so I’m pretty sure I’m not going to stop wanting you. Do you want me too?”

  He is so big, that’s the problem—no matter where I look, I’m looking at him. That’s why I feel so hot, so buzzy. And now I’m close enough to him to see that his hair is dark underneath the streaks of gold, and that his eyes are a deep, sober brown to counteract that devious dimple.

  “Lilah, do you want me too?”

  “That’s … beside the point,” I say breathlessly.

  “No, I think that’s precisely the point. I want you. I’ve had three weeks to fantasize about all the ways I want you, and the list just keeps getting longer and longer.” He licks his lips, and it’s as if the hot images running through his mind flicker in my head too. “The teacher thing is nothing—it’ll be a moot point in a few weeks anyway when the class is over. So that just leaves the fact that you have an irrational hatred of football players.”

  “It’s not irra—”

  “Thanks,” Riley says, talking over me and smiling at the waitress delivering our food. She has a slice of pie for me, and everything else in the kitchen for him. An enormous plate of eggs and hash browns is accompanied by bacon, sausage, pancakes, a biscuit covered with gravy, and a bowl of fresh fruit.

  “Seriously?” I say as a second waitress arrives with a plate of fries.

  “I’m a growing boy,” he says. “Literally. I’m bulking up right now, trying to get as big as I can for the season.”

  I’ve been known to put down a big meal, but I marvel at the number of plates on his side of the table. “There’s no way you can eat all that.”

  He grins. “Watch me. So, where did you go to art school?”

  “Huh?”

  “Art school. You can’t be that much older than I am, so you must be some sort of prodigy, right?”

  He’s trying to distract me. And it’s working. “No—I mean, yes, kind of, but—no. I didn’t go to art school.”

  “Really? You seem to know so much about this stuff.”

  “Ahh ….” He’s already taken down all of the eggs, three pieces of bacon, and half the pancakes. I pick up my fork and take the first bite of my blueberry pie. “I was planning on going to school, eventually. But then my grandmother had a heart attack. We’re managing it, but … it’s a struggle.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They’re not around.” There is no way I’m going to tell him about that. Instead, I return to the reason we’re here. “I don’t have an irrational hatred of football players.”

  He swallows the last of his pancakes. “What would you call it then?”

  “I would call it a learned intolerance for the football lifestyle.”

  He purses his lips. “Those sure are some fancy words. What do they mean?”

  The way he exaggerates his drawl makes me feel both sheepish and defensive. “You know what I mean. Football players think they can get away with anything. Look at your friend Reggie. He expects me to just pass him because he’s a football player.”

  Riley tilts his head. “It’s worked for him so far.”

  “That’s my point. He’s getting a college degree for nothing. And it doesn’t stop there,” I say, warming up to my subject. “Football players get away with all kinds of things. I grew up in this town, and I’ve seen Mustangs get away with drunk driving, vandalism, starting fights in bars. Nobody wants to punish them because everybody wants them playing football on Saturday. It’s ridiculous.”

  “You don’t think good kids should get a chance to make mistakes?” He has stopped eating, although there is still food on his plates.

  “These aren’t all ‘good kids.’ They get told over and over that there aren’t any consequences for their actions. They start to think that they’re supposed to get whatever they want. And they don’t care who they hurt in the process; they don’t care what kind of destruction they leave behind.”

  He’s frowning at me now. “Don’t you think that’s a broad generalization?”

  “Not when football is the excuse for a crime,” I say, not able to hide my anger. “Not when four star players think their status should make it okay for them to rape someone.”

  He points his fork at me. “See, there it is. This is about the scandal last year.”

  “Of course it is,” I say, throwing up my hands. “I can’t believe that any woman would trust football players after that. I can’t believe that you’re still allowed to have drunken parties with vulnerable girls.”

  “Everybody has to show ID,” Riley says quickly. “All the underclassmen have to stay sober, and the girls mix their own drinks.”

  “And you think that’s enough?” My hands are shaking too much for me to eat. “You think that makes up for what happened to Natalie?”

  “Natalie?”

  I can feel the blood draining from my face. “You don’t even know the name of the girl who your teammates raped?”

  He shakes his head. “No, no of course I know her name. Everybody knows—”

  “Right. Everybody knew she had been raped while she was blackout drunk. Everybody could see her naked on the Internet. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for her?”

  “It sounds like you have some idea.” Riley’s brown eyes have become so sympathetic it nearly undoes me. “Did you know her?”

  I press my lips together. I’m tired of crying, and I’m perilously close to breaking down again. It takes a long moment before I can get the words out. “She was my best friend.”

  Riley sits back with a sigh. “So that’s why. That’s why you hate football players.”

  I could argue the semantics, but I don’t think I can go through it again. “Yes. That’s why.”

  He reaches across the table and covers my hand with his. “I’m so sorry about what happened to her.”

  My face crumples, and I look away.

  “But you know I didn’t do that,” he continues. “I would never do what those guys did. And if I had known at the time, I would have done everything I could to stop it.”

  “Would you?” I say, peering up at him. “No one else did.”

  His mouth twists. “Look, maybe you have a point. I’m not stupid, I know that football players have a certain reputation. But it seems really unfair that you assume we’re all the same. I’m more than just a football player.”

  He’s right, I’m being unfair. That doesn’t mean I can change how I feel. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my student. We can be friendly, but that’s it.”

  “You didn’t answer my question before,” he says, waiting until I met his eyes. “If we take away everything else. If it’s just you and me … do you want me?”

  The answer, of course, is yes. But I feel like my heart is being torn in half. No matter how much I want him, my guilt over Natalie won’t allow it. “I’m telling you I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. Please don’t push it any further.”

  He holds my gaze for a long moment, and then he removes his hand from mine. I almost reach for him. “Okay. We can leave it at that.”

  My tight shoulders relax. Is it relief or regret coursing through me? “Thank you.”

  “Oh, don’t thank me,” he says with a sigh. “I’m not sure I can take it.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.

  After a long moment, Riley picks up his fork and starts eating again. “So, you grew up in Granite?”

  “Yes.” I toy with my fork. “We don’t have to make meaningless small talk now, either. I can just go.”

  “Don’t. You said we can be friends, right? So let’s give that a try.”

  “Friends?”

  “Yeah. I like you, Lilah. I know you’re my teacher for now, but that won’t last forever. And I like spending time with you. I
find you interesting. Besides, I can’t talk about painting with any of my teammates, and I have a lot to say.”

  That makes me smile. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “Like … like this Pop Art stuff. That’s totally different from your style. But you said that Rosenquist had a big influence on you. So how do you know what your style is?”

  I furrow my brow. “I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that before. I guess it’s about what speaks to you.”

  “I feel like everything speaks to me,” he laughs. “I want to try everything. Are you teaching again next semester?”

  Disappointment makes my frown deepen. I never would have believed this just three weeks ago, but I love teaching. “Marty will be back in time for fall semester. Have you taken any other art classes?”

  “This is my first.”

  “You might want to try a more specialized class. It’s nice to try a little of everything, but we don’t really get to delve deep into a single technique.”

  “Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wish I could. But I’ve only got this year of school left.”

  “What will you do after?”

  “That’s the million dollar question,” Riley says, staring off over my shoulder. “This is my last year to be eligible for the NFL draft. If I get picked up, I’ll play.”

  I thank the waitress as she refills my coffee and busses some of Riley’s plates. It gives me time to say out loud what I’m thinking. “You don’t sound terribly excited about it.”

  He chews on his lip for a moment before he replies. “With everything that’s happened in the last year, football just isn’t the same. Like I said, those guys were my friends. What they did tainted the game for me.”

  “So why are you still playing?”

  “Habit? Up until recently, football was all I ever wanted,” he says with a shrug. “You want some of these fries?”

  “Sure,” I say, dipping one in his pile of ketchup.

  “My whole family plays football,” he says as I crunch into a fry. “It’s football or the farm, and that’s it. I never planned on doing anything else.”

  “What would you do, if you could do anything?”

  He ponders that for a long time. “See, that’s the problem. My whole life, the answer has been football. But now … I wish I could go back and undo what happened to your friend, and find a way to guarantee that it wouldn’t happen to anyone else. But I can’t do that. So I’ve got to figure out a way to live in a new reality.”

  His words strike a chord deep inside me. It’s my turn to touch his hand. When he looks up, I smile. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Chapter Ten

  Riley

  LILAH WALKS BACK TO MY dorm with me where, unfortunately, the party is going harder than ever. “I somehow hoped that this would magically be over by now.”

  She checks her watch. “It’s not even ten. I expect you’ve got quite a few hours to go.”

  “I never liked this kind of party,” I say, staring up at the windows. “Too many drunk, stupid people being drunk and stupid.”

  “I used to like these kinds of parties.”

  “Used to?”

  “Natalie did, and I usually had fun when she dragged me along.”

  “Ah.” I don’t have anything to say to that. “You’ve come to parties at Taylor Hall? I can’t believe I never noticed you.”

  “Once or twice,” she says, her eyes far away. “But binge drinking has lost its appeal for me.”

  “Yeah, me too. I can’t believe I let Reggie talk me into this.”

  “This is Reggie’s doing?” She surveys the laughing people sprawled over lawn chairs in the front yard, the streamers trailing out of half the windows, the sophomore gloomily cleaning up vomit. “Well, I guess he learned one thing in college—how to throw a party.”

  “It’s the other thing he’s good at,” I say. Then I have an idea. “If I got Reggie to come to every class from here on out, could he still get a passing grade from you?”

  She frowns. “There’s an attendance requirement. If you count getting kicked out of the first class, he’s already missed too many. But I guess if he doesn’t miss any others ….”

  “He won’t,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. But I need to prove to her, in some weird way, that what she thinks of football players isn’t true.

  “You’re going to convince Reggie to come to class? How?”

  “Easy,” I say, grinning at her. “I’m bigger than he is.”

  Her face splits into a wide smile. The urge to kiss that beautiful mouth is so intense I almost—almost—forget that she doesn’t want me to.

  It doesn’t matter that I think her reasons are weak, and that she’s still mixed up over her friend’s death. She said no, so no it will be.

  My mind is dealing with that reality a lot better than my body. Spending an hour with her up close has me even more riled up than when I was watching her in class. Now I know how she crinkles her nose when she’s thinking. Now I know how she looks licking the last bit of blueberry pie off her fork.

  I’m a grown man, I can handle it. But dammit, I wish I could switch off my response to her as easily as she’s turned off her response to me. Because it was here, earlier, when she saw me in that stupid grass skirt Reggie made me wear. I know when a woman wants my body. Yet she refuses to admit it, and I’m not going to force her.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you on Monday,” she says.

  I barely stop myself from asking her to come up. Or asking to go home with her. Or asking for any way to spend a little more time with her. But I repeat to myself the words that I already knew will be my mantra—just friends, just friends.

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll see you Monday,” I say aloud. “And you know, I am literally always hungry, so if you ever want to hit up Duke’s again, let me know.”

  She stares at me for a long moment, and again I fight the urge to kiss her. Eventually—probably—this will get easier. This crazy attraction will subside. Until then, I will just have to figure out how to handle it.

  “Okay, sure,” she says finally. “Maybe I … maybe I have been judging you because you’re a football player. I should make the effort to get to know you as a person.”

  “And I can pick your brain about painting. It’s a win-win.” I watch her straddle the bike and fasten her helmet. “Can you ride that thing in heels?”

  She glances down at her gray ankle boots. “Honey, I can do anything and everything in heels.”

  She probably means things like walking and dancing, but the images that spiral through my mind involve much more creative positions. Just friends, just friends. “Uh … be careful getting home.”

  Lilah looks back toward the raging party in my dorm. “Be careful getting to your room. And maybe—could you maybe keep your eyes open tonight? Make sure no one is ….”

  She doesn’t finish the thought, but she doesn’t need to. Silently, I say goodbye to the idea of heading up to my room alone and locking the door. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Thanks,” she says on an exhale. “Thanks.”

  Then she’s riding away. And I’m going inside, to babysit a bunch of drunks.

  Over the next three weeks, I try to think of Lilah as a friend, a teacher. I try to think of her as a professional, as a peer, as a pal.

  None of it works. I still want to fuck her silly.

  “Fuck, man. I can’t wait for this class to be over.”

  I glance over at Reggie. With bribery, threats, and some minor violence, I have managed to do the impossible: Reggie has attended every art class. “You better not let Lilah hear that.”

  “Ooh, Lilah’s gonna be mad,” he says tauntingly, elbowing me as we walk to class. “She’s got big strong Lotto wrapped around her finger.”

  “Shut up, dude. I told you, it’s not like that.”

  “Yeah, okay. I believe you when you say you aren’t fucking her, because if you were, you’d be a lot more rel
axed.”

  I glare at him. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

  “Shit, you’ve got it bad, bro.”

  “Seriously, Reggie. Leave it alone.”

  Reggie shrugs. “Honestly, it makes all this art shit worth it. Watching you drool over her is hilarious. It’s nearly more fun than fucking with that British asshole.”

  “I do not drool,” I say shortly, even though I know my lies are worthless. Reggie knows she better than that. “Look, she’s my teacher, and we’re friendly, but that’s it.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure. Totally.”

  Before he can tug open the classroom door, I stop him with a hand on his shoulder and a threat in my voice. “Just shut up, do your final project, and then you’re done, okay? I’ll never harass you about going to class again.”

  When I open the door, Lilah turns to look at me. I go still, which just makes Reggie huff with silent laughter. But I can’t move. The impact of seeing her never seems to lessen. Today she’s wearing a leopard-print wrap dress that nips in at her waist and shows off her deep cleavage. She also has on a pair of strappy orange heels that make her legs appear a million miles long. But what stops me short is the look on her face. Like, for just a second, I caught her yearning for me.

  Just friends, just friends.

  With effort, I force myself to turn toward my seat. She hasn’t made a single indication in the last few weeks that she’s interested in me. Sometimes I think there’s something—a flash in her eyes, a hitch in her breath—but she never gets close enough for me to know for sure.

  We’ve gone back to the diner a couple of times—once when I asked her, once when she asked me. She tries to maintain a teacher-student barrier, but it’s hard to stay distant when we have so much to talk about. Her life has been completely different from mine. From her stories about her grandmother, I gather that she is responsible and loyal. From the lack of stories about her parents, I get the impression that, wherever they are, they haven’t been a part of her life for a long time. And from the way she’s slowly opening up about Natalie, I can see she is still grieving for her friend.

  It’s probably a good thing she closed off the romantic side of our relationship. Otherwise, I’d be in danger of falling in love with her.